Plane Cremona maps: saturation and regularity of the base ideal (Q1952161)

Let \(k\) be a field. A Cremona transformation of the projective plane \(\mathbb P_k^2\) is a birational map \(\phi:\mathbb P_k^2\dashrightarrow\mathbb P_k^2\) defined by three homogeneous polynomials in \(R=k[x,y,z]\), of the same degree, called the degree of \(\phi\), and without common factors; denote by \(I_\phi\) the ideal generated by these polynomials. The authors study such a map \(\phi\) by means of homological properties of \(I_\phi\), its saturation \(I^{\mathrm{sat}}_{\phi}\) and the quotient modules \(I^{sat}_\phi/ I_\phi\) and \(R/I_\phi\). Some results concerning the quotient modules above are proved for a more general ideal \(I\). Moreover, when \(I\) is generated by forms of the same degree and has height 2, one may associate to \(I\) a sort of ``fat ideal'' related to geometric properties of the rational map defined by such generators. Concerning Cremona maps, the authors first prove that \(I_\phi\) is saturated (i.e. \(I_\phi=I^{sat}_\phi\)) for any \(\phi\) of degree \(\leq 4\). Next, they classify plane Cremona maps which either are defined by monomials or have low degree and do not admit infinitely near base points (a map satisfying this last property is said to be ``simple'' by the authors). In particular, the paper gives a classification of simple Cremona maps of degrees \(5\leq d\leq 7\) whose ideal is not saturated and simple Cremona maps of degree 5 whose base points are in general position.